Commander Collection: Red Force

Commander / EDH Bracket 3 Burn Mono-Red

Jurrane

Punisher Cards (21)

• 1x Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos
• 1x Burning Earth
• 1x Cemetery Gatekeeper
• 1x Coruscation Mage
• 1x Descent into Avernus
• 1x Eidolon of the Great Revel
• 1x Firebrand Archer
• 1x Kessig Flamebreather
• 1x Leyline of Combustion
• 1x Magebane Lizard
• 1x Manabarbs
• 1x Pyrostatic Pillar
• 1x Quakebringer
• 1x Rampaging Ferocidon
• 1x Razorkin Needlehead
• 1x Repercussion
• 1x Screaming Nemesis
• 1x Spellshock
• 1x Sulfuric Vortex
• 1x Tectonic Giant
• 1x Zo-Zu the Punisher

Removal & Boardwipes (8)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x End the Festivities
• 1x Flamebreak
• 1x Goblin Chainwhirler
• 1x Volcanic Fallout
• 1x Wild Magic Surge

Direct Damage (11)

• 1x Boltwave
• 1x Fanatic of Mogis
• 1x Fiery Confluence
• 1x Flame Rift
• 1x Price of Progress
• 1x Pyrohemia
• 1x Sizzle
• 1x Spear Spewer
• 1x Sunspine Lynx
• 1x Thermo-Alchemist
• 1x Tunneling Geopede

Ramp (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Jeska's WillGC
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Ruby Medallion
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Sol Ring

Card Draw (5)

• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Shadow of the Goblin
• 1x Valakut Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Wheel of Fortune P
• 1x Wheel of Misfortune

Protection (4)

• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Commander (1)

Land (37)

• 1x Arid Mesa P
• 1x Bloodstained Mire P
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Fabled Passage P
• 28x Mountain
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Prismatic Vista P
• 1x Scalding Tarn P
• 1x War Room
• 1x Wooded Foothills P

Damage Multipliers (4)

• 1x Fiery Emancipation
• 1x Furnace of Rath
• 1x Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1x Twinflame Tyrant P

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{R}{R}{R} Introduction: Burn Baby, Burn {R}{R}{R}

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Let’s face it, some EDH games can go long. Maybe it’s an interminably stalled board state, perhaps it’s persistent slow play from our opponents (it’s never us, obviously), or possibly it’s someone deciding the most enjoyable way for everyone to experience Magic is to only ever take 20-minute solitaire turns with their combo deck.

Sometimes, though, we don’t want to play a two-hour Commander game. We’re short of time, we’ve had a long day, we don’t want to think too much, the list goes on. In that case, it’s time to break out this deck as win or lose, the game will be over pretty quickly.

“Red Force” is a group slug deck that uses Torbran, Thane of Red Fell's asymmetric damage effect, in combination with various other red sources, to punish all opponents equally and simultaneously. However, we’ll also end up hurting ourselves a lot in the process. I once heard decks like this described as being a bit like setting yourself on fire, grabbing the nearest people and throwing us all off a cliff: we’re all going to die - it’s just a case of who hits the bottom last.

This summary is a short overview about how I’ve designed the deck for the half dozen games or so I’ve played so far.

What We’re Trying To Do

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We’re aiming to reduce our opponents’ life total to zero. That’s it. And we’re not going to be subtle about it. We’re a mono-red deck.

We’re also what’s known as a punisher (or group slug) deck because we’re going to punish our enemies by forcing them to take pain for pretty much anything they’d normally do during an EDH game. But our punisher effects damage us too, so we’re relying on Torbran, Thane of Red Fell's static ability to ensure our actions hurt our opponents more than they hurt us.

Our goal, therefore, is to actively damage opposing players at a faster rate that we can damage ourselves, usually in an effort to quickly deplete their life totals before they’re able to properly set up their own strategies. We do this through a series of static effects, triggered effects, group direct damage spells and creatures. At all times, we're trying to stay ahead in the life total race.

How We’re Trying To Do It

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As with pretty much every other EDH deck, the card choices we make dictate our strategy. We utilise a sequence of abilities, usually enchantments and creatures, that deal varying levels of damage to our enemies. These effects may deal damage at set times, such as the upkeep (eg. Sulfuric Vortex), or they may deal damage based upon an opponent's actions (see Zo-Zu the Punisher and Rampaging Ferocidon). Though opponents may not be terribly troubled by any one of these effects at a time, our group slug deck gradually adds more and more of these effects to the table, compounding their effects and transforming them from a minor nuisance into a significant source of life loss that will burn enemies away in short order. This is especially true if Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is on the board because all our sources of damage are red effects.

Here are the various ways we deal damage to our opponents:

- Creatures & Combat: We’re not a particularly combat-heavy deck and we don’t have the highest density of creatures, but we have some pretty big hosses that can pack a punch if our opponents don’t have blockers. While most of our creatures are chosen because of their static or triggered effects, we are always happy to see threats like Leyline Tyrant, Neheb, the Eternal or Quakebringer connect with our enemies, especially if Torbran’s on the board. We usually use combat to attack with our creatures opportunistically when the time is right, as we generally want to keep them on the board and avoid the risk of combat tricks from opponents’ blockers.

- Creature Effects: This is where our creatures really shine. The vast majority of our critters have triggered or static effects that punish our opponents if they (or we) do stuff. There are too many to list here but standouts are Cemetery Gatekeeper, Magebane Lizard, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Fanatic of Mogis, Kessig Flamebreather, Quakebringer, Rampaging Ferocidon, Scab-Clan Berserker, Tunneling Geopede, Tectonic Giant, Gimli, Counter of Kills and Zo-Zu the Punisher, all of which exemplify the punisher/group slug style of play by triggering for increasingly inconvenient amounts of damage for our enemies, particularly if Torbran is in play.

- Triggered Effects: We run all sorts of triggered effects that punish everyone for doing routine stuff in Magic like playing lands, casting spells or taking turns. Annoying under normal circumstances, they become backbreaking for our opponents when Torbran makes them all do X+2 damage (compared to only X for us). Highlights here are Burning Earth, Manabarbs, Pyrostatic Pillar, Spellshock, Roiling Vortex and Sulfuric Vortex. If we have Repercussion on the table with a decent boardwipe like Blasphemous Act, we can sometimes kill all our enemies at once if they have enough creatures. Glorious.

- Group Direct Damage: Simplicity is often best so sometimes we just want to throw fire at everyone. We have a selection of instant and sorcery spells that are usually best saved (like most elements of this deck) for when Torban’s around, as they’ll hurt our opponents more than they hurt us. Fiery Confluence is amazing here as we can choose the 2-damage mode each time (each of which becomes 4 damage with Torbran), making an incredible rate of 12 damage to each opponent for only 4 mana. Price of Progress is usually equally explosive here as we don’t run many non-basic lands and our greedy opponents usually do. Flame Rift, Acidic Soil and Sizzle are also good, but they hurt us as well, as do most of our boardwipes that also function as direct damage spells (see “Staying Alive” below).

- Damage Doublers: We run several damage doubling effects that, if played carefully, can finish off our opponents out of nowhere. We have to be careful with these as we’re taking a lot of damage too, so they usually work best as finishers during the latter stages of the game, when our enemies are already softened up and their life totals are depleted. A well-chosen Furnace of Rath, Twinflame Tyrant or Solphim, Mayhem Dominus can very easily bring multiple opponents within range of some game-ending burn.

Staying Alive

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As I’ve found on repeated occasions, dealing 120 damage to three opponents while staying above 0 life ourselves is very hard. This is how I try do to it:

- Board Wipes & Group Removal: Every single game we play with this deck is basically a race to stay alive, so smart opponents will be doing everything they can to ensure our life total is lower than theirs. The main way they’ll usually be doing this is by attacking with our creatures, as we don’t have a lot of creatures ourselves and those we do have aren’t usually best left as blockers due to potential combat tricks. So we run a lot of boardwipes to try and keep the table as clear as possible. Fortunately many of our boardwipes also do damage to players as well as creatures (although we have to be careful not to get Torbran caught in our creature removal unless we’re OK with replaying him with commander tax). Blasphemous Act generally takes out everyone’s creatures but doesn’t hurt players; while Chandra's Ignition, Flamebreak, Sulfurous Blast and Volcanic Fallout damage everything including ourselves. Special mention to Goblin Chainwhirler who can often be a handy early-game boardwipe if Torbran’s in play.

- Ramp: We run multiple sources of ramp for various reasons: we want to come out of the blocks as quickly as possible; we want to try to at least keep up with other players ramping; more resources generally mean more damage; and we’re going to be recasting Torbran a lot with added commander tax. I've included a few mana rocks, as well as Jeska's WillGC, which has become a mono red staple. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is also a handy ramp source that’s versatile enough to also be a source of direct damage, especially in the unlikely-but-amazing scenario of us being able to use her ultimate.

- Protecting Torbran: Torbran is our deck’s greatest asset and must be kept alive at all costs. This isn’t easy because other players will try to kill him on sight. A commander protection package of Lightning Greaves, Whispersilk Cloak, Commander's Plate, Mask of Avacyn and Swiftfoot Boots help a bit, but I’d also really like Darksteel Plate to make him indestructable. I want to trade for this as a priority.

- Avoiding Lifegain: At the risk of stating the obvious, lifegain is our public enemy #1. Anything that increases our opponents’ life points should be removed at the early opportunity, or shut off with our effects that prevent lifegain. Quakebringer, Rampaging Ferocidon and Sulfuric Vortex are our best options in cases like this.

- Drawing Cards: The age-old problem with burn is it's liable to run out of gas. We try to overcome this with Valakut Awakening  , Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Misfortune, Jeska's WillGC, Endless Atlas, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and occasionally Tectonic Giant.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

In terms of power level, I'd categorise it as one of my Tier 3 decks (and also Bracket 3 in WotC's new power bracket system). It plays "fair" magic (no access to infinite combos) although it has optimised selections for most of its cards. I wouldn't take it to more competitive tables but it usually guarantees a fun time for casual pods, with the great advantage of making games nice and quick. Burn doesn't tend to be a particularly overpowered strategy in Commander so as long you don't go into games looking to win all the time, you should be absolutely fine. But it's perfectly viable and will often give opponents the fright of their lives.

Budget

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The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is just over $400. About a quarter of that price comes from just one card: Jeweled Lotus. Now that the likes of Fiery Emancipation and Ruby Medallion have come down in price, burn isn't a particularly expensive archetype if you don't care about fast mana sources. Because we barely run any nonbasic lands at all, our mana base costs next to nothing which really helps keep the budget down. Most other staples are just a couple of bucks and the more expensive cards (Commander's Plate, Jeska's WillGC) are nice to haves rather than essentials. I'd definitely recommend mono red burn/group slug as a fun strategy that can be built with relatively low investment.

The Ten Game Take

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After playing ten games with each of my decks I'll share its win percentage over that time, together with feedback and learnings from my experience so far.

This was the first of my 40 decks to reach ten games (I try not to play favourites and ensure each gets an airing fairly regularly). That said, this list reached 10 games first as it's the ideal list to break out at the end of the night when you only have half an hour or so and you want a quick match. As I've noted elsewhere in the primer, games with a mono red Torbran build that's focused around burn tend to go very quickly, regardless of whether we win or lose. Getting to 10 games wasn't hard at all and I had a lot of fun in the process.

From those 10 games the deck's overall win percentage was 40%, as it won 4/10 matches. That's definitely above average for the typical Commander deck as, assuming 4 players in each pod, statistically each player should be winning about 25% of the time. The caveat here though is this deck had a handful of 3-player games (probably 2-3), which are usually easier to win as we only need to deal 80 damage to our opponents, rather than 120. I think I'm right in saying it won every 3-player game it played.

Although I don't keep detailed notes on the games I've played, from memory this deck competed against mostly other bracket 3 decks, with a small number of bracket 2s and 4s. The most memorable wins were from either (a) volleys of cheap, low-costed damage spells while Torbran was on the table; or (b) resolving Blasphemous Act with Repercussion in play, destroying everyone's creatures and killing most or all opponents in the process.

Other lessons I learned were to increase the land count, as we really don't want to be missing land drops, and doing whatever it takes to stay ahead in the life totals race, as fighting back from a losing position is very difficult due to our symmetric damage effects. We can certainly win without Torbran - and I've definitely done so in some of those games - but it only takes 1-2 instances of commander tax to make him unviable to recast.

Upcoming Changes

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While new cards come up from time to time, group slug is a relatively settled archetype so I'm not planning any major changes. The biggest investment I could make is to add fast mana sources like the premium mana rocks (Mana Crypt, Mana VaultGC, Ancient TombGC etc) but they could end up being counterproductive as the acceleration they offer comes at the cost of our life points. Chrome MoxGC is an option but I have other decks that want it more.

Other than fast mana, I want some more effective ways to draw cards. Wheel of Misfortune and Valakut Awakening   are replacing Magus of the Wheel and Outpost Siege.

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All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Midrange Combo

{B} Ayara, First of Locthwain {B}
Black Diamond: Mono-Black Aristocrats Combo

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Land Sacrifice

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGC {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{U}{B} Lord of the Nazgul {U}{B}
The Black Gate Opens: Dimir Spellslinger

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Font of Blessings {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{W}{B} Eriette of the Charmed Apple {W}{B}
Flight of the Wicked Witch: Orzhov Auras

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Marchesa, the Black Rose {U}{B}{R}
Revenge of the Mummy: Grixis Dethrone/Combo

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{B}{G} Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant {W}{B}{G}
A Long-Expected Party: Abzan Lifegain/Combo

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Control

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

{U}{R}{G} Eshki, Temur's Roar {U}{R}{G}
Thunder Striker: Temur Power Matters

Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Copy Clone, Coruscation Mage 1/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Foretell, Treasure